Trashing recycling provides dubious returns

By David Berry

05/11/2010

The announcement was made the day before Earth Day 2010. The Eastern Shore resort town of Ocean City, Md., was eliminating its curbside recycling program, citing its economic impact on the town budget.

From now on the town's 7,000 full time residents would dispose of their paper, bottles and cans in their normal trash bins. The waste would be hauled to Pennsylvania where the metal would be removed and the rest burned for energy. Spokes people for Ocean City said this would save the town $1million a year. They cited the fact that prices for recycled trash have dropped in the last year. They claim that it costs $394 to remove a ton of recycled items versus $162 a ton for regular trash. The fifteen town employees involved in the recycling program would either be placed in other jobs or laid off.

Ocean City officials hoped that the fact that the waste would be burned for energy would offset complaints about the decision, but it remains that they are flying in the face of an increasingly green society where more and more municipalities require some level of curbside recycling. They also are in marked contrast to Baltimore which announced that recycling has increased 33 percent in the ten weeks since they went to a single stream program, where the residents don't have to separate paper from bottles and cans. The city saves $55 a ton on recycles versus normal trash.

Ocean City's decision would not be allowed in many states including Pennsylvania where a 1988 law requires all municipalities with more than 5,000 residents to have curbside recycling. Maryland's law requires counties and the state to recycle between 15 and 20 percent of their trash. Ocean City can rely on Worcester County to meet the requirement. Residents can voluntarily take their recyclables to a county facility.

There is no doubt that Ocean City is suffering a budget crisis. Many cities and towns are. Baltimore faces a $122 million dollar deficit, but what are the economics of recycling? The truth is that you can get any answer you want to that question depending on who did the study, what their objectives were, and how they measured the various costs involved in waste removal. The one thing studies agree on is that a good recycling program costs more than simple trash hauling.

Ocean City says the cost of recycling is more than double per ton, yet a New York Times article in May, 2008 quoted a study that reported the cost differences in New York City, probably not a paragon of efficiency, was 6 percent and noted the city was considering expanding the program. (New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg heavily curtailed city recycling in 2002 only to reinstate it a year later because of overwhelming popular demand. The city found other means of resolving a budget deficit). The study also showed that the cost gap was closing.

There are cities, such as Baltimore that claim a cost savings. Philadelphia, despite both city and state laws that require recycling, still takes 93 percent of its trash to the landfill. Portland Oregon only takes 45 percent to the dump. Philadelphia wants to increase the percent of recyclables because of the constant rise in tipping fees, the cost of a truck unloading at a landfill.

Economics aside, recycling is good, and a relatively easy way to protect the environment. Environmental groups suggest that the recycling program in New York City has the same effect as removing 338,000 cars from the road.

If Ocean City finds eliminating recycling is an easy budget fix, how many other places will follow suit, undoing twenty-five years of public education and tangible progress in at least one area of environmental stewardship? Governments owe the population certain services that emphasize safety and sound management of resources for a common good. Recycling does not have to always be an economic loser. Commodity prices rise and efficiency can be introduced in the system based on an economy of scale. Witness the progress in Baltimore. Dropping a recycling program due to one annual budget is not good government. It is short sighted thinking that fails to take into account the broader good recycling provides.